It can really screw people up. I’ll use myself as an example. I grew up in the 80’s with the “Me Generation” (aka Baby Boomer) controlling the “Me Decade”. I was bombarded and saturated with gross amounts commercialism and overwhelming materialism — that’s the way I thought life was, I didn’t know any different! Even the slogan for the 80’s (and 90’s) won an Academy Award: “Greed is good!” ~ Gordon Gekko.

There I am, all primed to rake in the easy .com money and make a fortune in anything I bet on…but by the time I have any kind of substantial money to invest what happens? POP! POP! POP! POP! (how many bubbles were there in the last 8 years?).

Now my brain, raised and wired by the greed and over-consumption of the 80’s, doesn’t know what to do! But seriously….good thing I’m a saver by nature.

On a similar vein, I was talking with a friend of mine about why there hasn’t been any protests etc in the U.S. in response to the sketchy activities the banks and government have been up to (as opposed to the month-old protests taking place in Iceland). He had a good insight. If you constantly beat a person down eventually they will break and revolt (or just lay down and die); but…if you give a person everything and anything they want and need, with very little or no effort on their part, then you subdue their spirit and dull their brains (like a fattened cow). So when things do start going up in flames, the zombies just sit and watch the show. A very bad side effect of ‘Instant’.

We haven’t really had to suffer or compete or really, really work to get anything in maybe the last 50 years. Sure, life is supposed to get easier, I guess, but look what happens when we get that life handed to us.

On the flip side of things, massive fortunes CAN be made literally over night, but not by mere chance, luck, or line of credit. It usually has to be backed up by a life time of study and experience (e.g. George Soros made a BILLION dollars in one day trading the British Pound; Buffet made a BILLION dollars when Proctor & Gamble bought out Gillette; Jed Clampett made millions from bubbling crude).

“Good things come NOT to those who wait, but to those who make good things happen.” ~ Me

The funny thing is, by realising this and doing something about it, that journey will likely take less time!

(sorry but I just had to!)

Stocks with consistent dividend growth like JNJ, MCD and a plethora of others are always ridiculed for their low yields. Of course if you could wait one decade or more then your yield on cost does rise to the double digits..